


nothing starts without you

by pumpkinless



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: First Dates, Flirting, Gay Disaster Shiro (Voltron), Happy Birthday Keith (Voltron), M/M, Married Sheith, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Season/Series 07, gratuitous birthday cake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-08 00:46:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16419248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pumpkinless/pseuds/pumpkinless
Summary: Shiro woos Keith for his birthday, and at the end of the day, Keith has to admit to himself that he's just as embarrassing as his husband.





	nothing starts without you

**Author's Note:**

> i'm only three days late for keith's birthday, which is practically on time!! happy birthday keith i love you so much
> 
> title from "new beginnings" by daydreamer

Keith starts his birthday like any other day because, unfortunately, it’s still a normal Tuesday. No one, not even the Black Paladin, gets special dispensations of time off for their birthday when there are still meetings to attend and classes to teach.

He gets up to the sound of his alarm, Shiro absent from bed for his weekly meeting on the progress of Earth’s defenses with the rest of the Admiralty, and makes his sleepy way to the gym. It’s quiet, filled with the usual suspects—Kinkade already halfway through his weightlifting session, a few people on the treadmills, two cadets doing yoga in the corner. The only thing different about this morning is that Shiro isn’t here to give him a parting kiss at the door while they head to their respective stations.

He launches into his routine. After stretching, Keith heads to the elevated track that rings the gym and checks the time on his phone before leaving it in a cubicle with his towel. Twenty minutes until Shiro’s meeting ends

As he runs, the sky slowly lightens, the soft, hazy morning light fighting the florescent lights for dominance. Floor to ceiling windows line most of the track, and because it’s his birthday, Keith takes his time to appreciate the view outside—it’s mostly just sky, occasionally blocked out by a taller building, but today wispy clouds hang low in the sky and it lights up scarlet red.

Half an hour in, Keith sees the gym door swing open below as Shiro steps inside. He’s stripped down to his usual thin tank top and a pair of sweatpants that might be new—they’re black instead of old, ratty gray and look tighter than normal. Keith can’t help but lick his lips as he takes a final lap around. It’s terribly unfortunate that today is just like any other day, because Keith can’t think of a better excuse than his birthday to cut their workout time short and drag Shiro right back to bed and keep him there until they’ve destroyed the sheets.

Another time. Tonight, maybe.

He wanders down back to the floor after his run and sets his eyes on Shiro—specifically, Shiro’s back and the flexing muscles he can see as Shiro reaches his arms above his head in a long stretch. Nice.

“Hey, baby,” Shiro says when Keith steps into his line of vision, “come here often?”

“Uh, yeah,” Keith says with a snort. “Every day, even.”

Shiro gives him his most devastating grin. “I’ve never seen you around before.”

Keith blinks. Is this another one of Shiro’s weird things? Is he trying to be cute? He’s tripped Keith up like this before; Lance says Keith just doesn’t understand flirting, which isn’t completely true. Keith knows that this _is_ flirting, but he doesn’t get _why_ Shiro is doing it. “Um,” Keith says. He can do this though, he can play along. “I’ve . . . never seen you before. Either.”

Shiro’s eyes light up and he crosses the last bit of distance between them. Keith follows his lead, opening his body to Shiro and leaning his left shoulder on the white cinderblock wall. Shiro is definitely checking him out now, and Keith is but weak and human and _definitely_ in the position of knowing what to do with that: he cocks his head to lengthen the line of his neck and slouches deeper against the wall to emphasize their height difference. He knows what Shiro likes.

“I’m Shiro. What's your name, baby?”

God, he's so weird, but so is Keith, so of course he blushes a little when Shiro leans closer. He's so tall. “I'm Keith.”

“Keith.” The way Shiro says his name is ridiculous, full of heavy promise and intent. “I don't want to come on too strong,” Shiro says, as if his fingers aren't dancing over Keith's crossed forearms.

“Uh-huh,” Keith says. He stares at Shiro's bottom lip and tries to figure out if throwing his husband over his shoulder and making his way back to their room for several hours of uninterrupted sex is acceptable on his birthday.

“Go out with me tonight?”

“Sure.” They've had a night off planned for a month, actually; Keith let the Paladins throw him a party last weekend so he and Shiro could have this night all to themselves. He thought they were gonna spend it in bed,

Then the strangest thing, though. Shiro stuffs a hand in his pocket and fishes out a piece of paper to hand to Keith. It has his phone number on it, of all things, as if Keith doesn't have it memorized. He takes it, bewildered, and when he looks up to Shiro for an explanation, all he gets is a crooked grin. “Call me?”

“Um.”

“Promise I’ll—”

It's like watching a cocky cadet wreck their first time in the simulator. Shiro shifts his body yet another couple of inches closer to Keith and lifts an arm to rest on the wall so he can get closer to Keith. Only, it's his floating prosthetic arm, and he doesn't go for the forearm lean so much as the elbow lean, and he just kind of—

Collapses. Into the wall. Keith witnesses every perfect second of his smug, flirty face slipping into wide-eyed shock as he loses his balance and almost smashes his nose against the wall.

Keith can't help himself; he _laughs_ at Shiro's confusion and the sharp contrast to how he'd just been acting.

Shiro smiles at him, sheepish, but he's nothing if not brave, so he soldiers forward through a face burning with embarrassment and a probably very wounded ego. “So,” he says, voice cracking, “tonight, then. Bye!”

And he races away.

***

Despite what Keith had thought about coming back to Earth and working with Shiro, they see each other during the day far less than he had expected. Shiro is still in the middle of his workout when Keith leaves the gym. Kinkade and Shiro have taken up doing a twenty-minute meditation every morning, so they're tucked away in one of the private training rooms where Kinkade can play his music and they can hum in peace, or whatever it is they do in there. Just the thought of meditation makes Keith start to itch.

He texts Shiro after showering, just to make light fun and say he's looking forward to tonight, but he discovers that Shiro is—still in character?

_well I'm glad I didn't lose my chance with you,_ Shiro texts back.

_I don't think you're in danger of that_

_good. I've been wanting to ask you out for a while._

Keith raises an eyebrow at that, but he lets it slide. _see you tonight,_ he sends.

_7pm good?_

_yeah_

Keith shrugs off the weirdness as he makes his way to a meeting over breakfast with the rest of the Paladins, which is mostly a meeting with Hunk until the other three finally manage to drag themselves out of bed. Keith and Allura really need to have a talk about her not letting Lance talk her into sleeping halfway through the meetings she insists on holding.

“Happy birthday, buddy!” Hunk greets him. He envelops Keith in a warm, tight hug, and Keith gives back as good as he's got.

“Thanks, man,” Keith says. Hunk is one of those few rare people whose kindness Keith never doubts to take at face value. He produces a cake for Keith, holding it out so he can see the bright red frosting and the words piped on top, surrounded by colorful balloons in the colors of Voltron. Keith tries not to get choked up over the obvious time and care Hunk put into it.

“It's dark chocolate cherry cake,” Hunk explains, “with cream cheese frosting.”

Keith can't help but lick his lips. Hunk knows cream cheese frosting is his weakness. “Can we eat it now?”

Hunk nods with enthusiasm, and he ducks out of the room to find a knife while Keith takes a picture of the cake on his phone. Krolia hadn't been able to make it back for his birthday, but he thinks she'll appreciate this.

The cake is, of course, the best thing Keith has ever tasted and the best birthday breakfast. He thanks Hunk at least three times, and wraps up a piece for Shiro immediately because he knows full well that otherwise they’ll decimate the whole thing without any regard for Shiro.

Keith is only mildly begrudged that he has to share it with the others.

Pidge walks in first, ruffling Keith’s hair with a “Happy birthday, O great leader” while her free hand takes the piece of cake Hunk offers her. “This is the only reason I came,” she says through a bite the size of half her fist.

“Thanks for that,” Keith says. He opens his mouth to ask exactly how late she was up last night, but Lance interrupts with a dramatic entrance that nearly sends the door off its hinges.

“Keith! It’s your birthday, and I have come to sing you a song,” Lance shouts, both his hands planted on his hips.

Allura pokes her head up from behind him. Instead of stopping Lance, she holds up rainbow party hats and a fistful of noisemakers that Keith just _knows_ he can’t stop any of them from using.

“I do apologize, Keith,” she says. The shit-eating grin on her face contradicts her words. “But you didn’t think we wouldn’t throw you at least a small party on your birthday, did you?”

Lance starts singing--screaming, really--as they hustle into the room. Allura snaps the hats on everyone haphazardly before tending to her own with characteristic precision so it sits just so on her bun. Hunk joins in with Lance as Pidge grabs one of the noisemakers and prepares to blow into it and—

Well, Keith can’t do anything but duck his head to hide a smile.

***

Keith's flight class starts with a hullabaloo over the white box sitting on his desk.

He walks in to find his students pretending very hard to not look at the box, even though the whispers are anything but subtle. Teaching young cadets the basics of flight theory isn’t Keith’s first love, or even much of a love at all, but the Garrison had strong-armed him into it. As a Paladin of Voltron, as someone with significant experience, as an officer living on Garrison property—well. They let him off the hook for everything except teaching flight classes.

The contents of the box stump him at first. They’re cupcakes. It’s not immediately determinable what’s going on with the, uh, creative decorations, each cupcake a different design and a sharp contrast to the precision and cleanness of Hunk’s cake. The frosting is white and messy, slathered on with utter lack of skill. The piped red icing on top of that drips everywhere and, if Keith is honest, sort of looks like blood. Altogether, it’s pretty ugly.

Keith would recognize one of Shiro’s attempts at cooking anywhere, and his heart skips a beat.

It takes Keith a moment to put together the letters on top because they don’t really look like letters until you spend a moment staring at them. When he finally reads the message, his face heats up.

_Date me?_ the cupcakes ask, followed by a cupcake frosted with a shaky heart. Two final cupcakes have the letters Y and N on top. The Y cupcake has rainbow sprinkles on it.

Keith gapes down at the box.

“Captain?” one of his more obnoxious students says. “What is it?”

Hastily, Keith closes the lid. “Nothing,” he answers, pushing it to the side so he can set down his notepad. “Uh, hand in your homework.”

They have a test that day about flight regulations and jargon and whatnot, things like how to properly communicate with air traffic control. Stuff Keith had to reteach himself when he begrudgingly accepted this position because there’s no such thing as air traffic control in space, and he hasn’t had to think about landing protocol while flying a robot lion.

Once the students are settled, he nudges the box open again to take a swipe of frosting. It’s buttercream, delicious and overly sweet, just the way his obnoxious sweet tooth likes it, and he bets that underneath the frosting is red velvet cake. The only real question is why they’re here, and what Keith is expected to think about it.

He texts Shiro.

_what are you doing_

The answer comes immediately: _Is that your answer?_

Keith stares hard at his phone. Is this a joke? But no, it can’t be, because even though something is clearly happening, Shiro would never joke about their relationship. This is just . . . the weirdest birthday present Keith has ever received.

Slowly, so as not to make noise to disturb the classroom, he lifts the Y cupcake out of the box and sends Shiro a picture of it sitting on his desk. He tacks on an extra text that just says _nerd_ for good measure.

Shiro says, _Glad to hear it :)_

Keith takes his frustration out on the cupcake. It might be ugly as hell, but it’s a damn good cupcake.

***

The fact that Shiro isn’t through with his plan shouldn’t be a surprise, but Shiro accosting him in public definitely is.

He walks to lunch with Pidge and Lance, as part of the Paladin Initiative for Pidge’s Nutrition to make sure she eats at least one meal away from the computer each day (abbreviated PIPN, Lance’s annoying title and acronym, Keith only uses it because it’s been said to his face so many times he can’t help but think it), only to be greeted outside the cafeteria door not by Shiro, exactly, but by a bouquet of flowers that might be hiding Shiro behind it.

This whole thing where Keith spends his entire birthday blushing? Embarrassing. Pidge crowing in the background with Lance? Embarrassing. The eyes of half the cafeteria peeking at him and Shiro through the glass windows, probably knowing full well they’re married and it’s Keith’s birthday? Embarrassing.

Shiro stepping in front of Keith, holding out the flowers, and saying, “I’m really looking forward to our date tonight”?

That’s. Well. Keith wishes he were embarrassed by that.

“Gross, bye,” Pidge says, which is fair. She drags Lance away.

“I don’t understand,” Keith says, even as he allows Shiro to transfer the giant bundle of flowers into his arms. They are, truth be told, beautiful, even to someone like Keith who’s never thought much about what kind of flowers he likes. He recognizes the plumes of tiny purple flowers as Shiro’s favorite, and the long red stems that grow out in the desert.

“Dinner under the stars? Tonight?” Shiro says, voice gentle as a hidden stream in the woods.

Keith makes an abortive sound in response, his face still surrounded by flowers. His eyes flick between them and Shiro, and it’s all he can do to nod dumbly, mouth half open. Shiro’s eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles, dumbfounding Keith even more with how handsome he manages to look under the terrible hallway lighting.

“I’ll see you then,” Shiro says. He ducks around the flowers to kiss Keith on the cheek.

Keith is certain that Shiro’s kissed him like that before, there’s no way he hasn’t, considering how long they’ve been together. But the shy touch feels new and exploratory and the soft scent of flowers clouds the entire scene with just enough of a haze to make Keith feel like a teenager with a crush all over again. He blushes scarlet anew, so caught in the feeling that he hardly notices Shiro skipping off down the hall to go somewhere.

Keith walks face first into the cafeteria door.

***

“Lance,” Keith hisses, sliding into the cafeteria seat next to him. The flower bouquet takes up half the table. “Do you have any idea what Shiro is doing?” Lance isn’t his first choice of information, but this seems like the sort of thing he would put into Shiro’s head.

Lance visibly winces, closing his eyes with a sigh. “I told him it was too much.”

_“What_ was too much?”

“Well, at first he was just gonna romance you,” Lance explains. He shakes his head, a haunted look in his eyes. “Buy you flowers, take you to a nice dinner, go stargazing, whatever gross crap you guys are into. He wanted my advice on a good place to buy flowers.”

“Okay,” Keith says slowly, “but that’s not what he’s doing. He’s acting like—like—”

“Like he’s never met you before, yeah, I know, it’s somehow more disgusting than the thought of you having a candlelit dinner.” Lance screws up his face in disgust and Keith contemplates punching him in the shoulder. “He thought—look, I don’t know why he thought this was a good idea, it’s so stupid—”

_“Lance.”_

Throwing his hands up in the air, Lance says, “Fine! He said that since you guys never really had a normal relationship he wanted to give you the gift of, like, the first time or whatever. God, it’s so disgusting when I say it like that, but that’s it.”

“First time?” Keith says, confused. “We’ve already—”

“No!” Lance shouts. He lunges for Keith, clapping a hand over his mouth. “No, nope, don’t tell me anything.”

“Fuck you,” Keith tries to say. He licks Lance’s hand for good measure, but he doesn’t even blink.

“I have too many siblings for that to work,” Lance says. Keith shoves him away with maybe a little too much force. “Shiro just—I guess he thought you missed out on the first date experience or something? I mean, you guys did go from best buddies to married in, like, three months, so I get it. But now he’s acting like this. Ugh.”

“I don’t understand,” Keith says, but he ignores Lance’s exasperated attempt at an explanation in favor of his own thoughts.

If this is Shiro’s—what, his do-over with Keith? If it’s that, then Keith would like him to know that he doesn’t need a do-over, that Keith likes how their relationship started just the way it is. He never regretted making Shiro such an important part of his life from so early on. He doesn’t regret that he and Shiro finally kissed one day and then two days later Keith accidentally proposed to him. Shiro’s been it for him, for a damn long time, and Keith doesn’t need it to be different.’

_But,_ a tiny corner of his mind whispers, _maybe Shiro does?_

In a panic, Keith blurts out, “Does Shiro regret getting married so fast?”

Lance gapes at him, caught mid-sentence. “Shiro? Regret marrying you? Keith, dude, he doesn’t—”

“Well, then why does he want—?”

“Oh my god, you’re not even listening,” Lance groans. “He wants to be romantic, okay? I don’t even—you know what? I’m done having this conversation. Bye.”

Lance turns away in a huff, focusing all his attention on his tray of food, but Keith doesn’t have time or energy to spare on his feelings. He has a husband to puzzle out and a flower vase to find.

***

It is true, Keith realizes as he stalks across the base looking for a vase, that their relationship moved a little fast.

Keith and Shiro got married on the battlefield like a twenty-first century pirates movie. It was suitably dramatic and emotional: Coran shouted their vows over the comms system, Lance spent the whole time shooting down Galra drones and complaining, Hunk sniffled his way through a series of blaster shots, Pidge cackled, and Allura kept warning them about incoming attackers. It feels like ages ago, and it was—years, even, but Keith wouldn’t have it any other way.

The ceremony words were strange and Keith is pretty sure Coran isn’t anything approaching an Altean minister. But he remembers fighting back to back with Shiro, him shouting over his shoulder to Keith, “I know you technically asked first, but do you want to get married?”

Keith was the fool who said yes, but Shiro was the fool who shouted, “Coran! Can you marry us?”

He still remembers the taste of electricity on Shiro’s lips as they stood on a decimated battlefield, Keith’s bayard fallen to his side while Shiro’s hands held his face tight. He remembers the fierce, wild fire in Shiro’s eyes.

Keith has rarely in his life ever felt so happy and alive.

***

He finds a beautiful vase sitting right in the middle of their room. It’s already filled with water.

***

Paladin training is a rush, as always. Forming Voltron never gets old, and it’s good to spend the afternoon with his closest friends flying around the solar system.

Today, training is a strong word for what they’re actually doing, which amounts to little more than doing flybys of Venus, Mercury, and Jupiter, just because they can. Pidge and Hunk are testing a new cloaking systems upgrade that they’ve implemented on all the individual lions but now need to ensure works when they’re in Voltron. Keith is happy to let them at it while he gazes out at the stars and planets. He’ll never get tired of this view.

They make it back to Earth by early evening. Keith steps out of his lion, docked securely on the Atlas, right into the waiting clutches of an over excited wolf who’s all too happy to begin the process of getting fur all over Black’s interior again if Keith will just let him pass.

“Stop that,” he says with a chuckle, wrestling the wolf back. “Why are you—what’s this?”

Tied to the wolf’s collar is a piece of paper. Keith strokes his fluffy ears with one hand while tugging it free.

He recognizes Shiro’s handwriting immediately.

_Remember where we went when we wanted to get away but couldn’t find anywhere to go?_

Keith is glad there’s no one here to watch him raise a hand to cover his smile.

***

“There you are,” Keith says when the door to the roof opens. “I’ve been waiting.”

“We agreed to meet at seven,” Shiro answers. He comes into view, a thick blanket draped over one arm and his prosthetic floating behind carrying an honest to god picnic basket. He’s wearing a jacket Keith doesn’t recognize, a style that reminds him of the Balmerans, and the jeans he has on are usually stuffed in the back of the closet because they’re a pain to put on.

A pain because they’re _tight._

“You look good,” Keith says, tracing his eyes slowly up Shiro’s body. He lingers at Shiro’s thighs.

Shiro laughs and drops the blanket on the ground so he can tug Keith up into a kiss. It’s that easy kind of domestic kiss that took Keith the longest to learn his way around, but now he knows just how to lean into Shiro’s mouth and body.

“Please tell me what was going on today,” Keith murmurs into his mouth. Shiro snorts.

“Food first,” he says. “Hunk worked hard on it, I don’t want it to go to waste.”

Keith relents and helps him set out the spread of food—it’s excessive for just two people, but it looks incredible. Hunk even included a tiny version of the cake he made for Keith this morning, just big enough for two people to split in half.

“How was your day?” Shiro asks as they dole out gigantic slices of Hunk’s famous quiche. Keith’s piece sort of just resembles half a pie.

“Good, other than the weirdo I’ve apparently never met before who kept asking me out,” Keith says. He stares at Shiro while he takes another bite, and Shiro at least has the good grace to duck his head in embarrassment. “You know anything about that?”

Shiro clears his throat. He focuses on spreading rosemary hummus over a piece of bread. “He gave you flowers.”

“Uh huh.”

“And baked you cupcakes.”

“Yeah.”

Shiro starts to sound nervous. “He wanted to take you on a date.”

“Hah. I hadn’t noticed.”

An explosive sigh comes out of Shiro’s mouth. “You didn’t get it, did you?”

Well, shit. Here comes the awkward part of the night, reminding Keith that he’s no good at relationships—he takes everything on instinct and forgot for a while that he’s supposed to remember his wedding anniversary. Not on purpose. He tries to treat every day with Shiro as if it’s an exceptional day, but now Shiro has gone and done something _on purpose_ that Keith was supposed to pick up on.

Keith opens his mouth to apologize, but Shiro is already there to silence him. He tucks the tip of his fingers under Keith’s chin and leans in for the softest ghost of a kiss. Keith’s eyes slide halfway shut.

“Keith,” Shiro whispers, “this is our first date.”

It seems so obvious in retrospect. Sure, they got together in the middle of a war and got married then too, always stuck on the ship or stuck in a fight or just plain stuck on opposite ends of the universe. But it never occurred to Keith that this was a milestone they hadn’t yet hit, that there was still something more to come.

After years of marriage, it’s absurd that they’re just now getting around to a date. But, Keith thinks, it wouldn’t be _them_ if it didn’t happen like this.

“We’re on a date,” he says, just to test the words out in his mouth. They aren’t strange.

“I thought you would be more excited.” It’s not disappointment in Shiro’s tone, but fond resignation. “I shouldn’t be surprised.” His fingers twine with Keith’s.

Keith pauses for a moment to think over exactly what he’s feeling. It’s not excitement, that’s for sure, but it’s hardly negative or any less overwhelming. He likes this, he decides, the casual intimacy of sharing a meal just for the sake of doing it, of holding Shiro’s hand and looking up at the stars and just talking.

They eat lunch together most days, sometimes even just the two of them, but it’s nothing like this when they’re in a clamoring cafeteria. One of them usually has a report to read over before a meeting. Keith would never say that he feels out of the loop in Shiro’s life, not when they live and work together, but perhaps what makes tonight different is the slowness of it. Maybe what he really likes is knowing that this night is theirs.

“We should date,” Keith says. “We should—we should do this more. I want to do that with you.”

Shiro turns his face to Keith’s, his skin kissed by the glow of sunset. “Yeah?”

Keith nods and leans closer, brushing his nose against Shiro’s and touching their foreheads together. “I love you.”

Shiro kisses him in response.

 

**Author's Note:**

> one of these things is an actual thing i did to get a prom date lmao. thanks for reading!!
> 
> [tumblr](http://disloyalpunk.tumblr.com)   
>  [twitter](http://twitter.com/disloyalpunk)


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